Abstract
The research reported in this article investigated how students learning Japanese or Russian as a third language (L3) perceived and produced word-initial stops in their respective target language and the link between perception and production. The participants in the study were 39 Chinese university students who spoke Mandarin Chinese as their first language (L1), English as their second language (L2), and Japanese or Russian as their L3. An L3 identification task, an L3 reading task, and an L2 reading task were used to investigate the learners’ perception and production of word-initial stops. The results demonstrated that the phonetic similarity in different stop categories between L1, L2, and L3 contributed to learners’ confusion in perception. On the contrary, L3 learners could perceive the new acoustic feature voicing lead, but found it difficult to produce L3 voiced stops. In addition, the study found a positive relationship between the perception and production of voiceless stops in the initial stage of L3 acquisition, but there was no correlation between the perception and production of voiced stops. Pedagogical implications for L3 speech learning are discussed on the basis of the results.
Highlights
In the past, a number of researchers have observed and analyzed the similarities and commonalities between learners’ first languages and their target languages, and discussed the acquisition of sounds in a foreign language within the framework of second language (L2) acquisition
Combined crosslinguistic influence (CLI) occurs when the target language is concurrently influenced by two or more languages, or when the target language is influenced in turn by a language that has already been influenced by a prior language (De Angelis, 2007)
The two groups of learners almost overlapped in the distribution of voice onset time (VOT) values for word-initial stops in L2
Summary
A number of researchers have observed and analyzed the similarities and commonalities between learners’ first languages and their target languages, and discussed the acquisition of sounds in a foreign language within the framework of second language (L2) acquisition. The development of language other than English (LOTE) education is taking place at a remarkable speed in the evolving landscape of higher education in mainland China (Shen & Gao, 2019). These fast-growing programs face a range of challenges, including problems with unrealistic curricula, teacher shortages, and pedagogy (Han et al, 2019). Research on the teaching and acquisition of non-English languages is insufficient and is not keeping pace with the development of these programs in Chinese universities (Gu et al, 2011). De Angelis (2007) defined CLI as the influence of prior linguistic knowledge on the production, comprehension, and development of a target language. If the two prior languages share some phonetic features, they will exert a “double interference” in L3 acquisition (Chamot, 1973)
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